T20 World Cup: Australia saved even after the umpire’s mistake, otherwise it was decided that the fleet
It was necessary for Australia to win this match to keep the hope of reaching the semi-finals alive and they did win but this mistake of the umpire could have been heavy in the end.
Image Credit source: AFP
There are always some controversies in every major cricket tournament. Some mistakes happen. Most are unintentional and umpires’ mistakes are prominent among them, which are often seen in tournaments from T20 leagues to the World Cup. The T20 World Cup being held in Australia is also no different, where the decisions of the umpires are already being raised in question in the matches of the Indian cricket team. In the midst of all this, something happened in the match of the host Australia, which shocked everyone and could have harmed Australia.
A match was played between defending champions Australia and Afghanistan in Adelaide on Friday. This match was very important for Australia because only a win here could keep it in the semi-final race. Australia also registered victory but it lost its sweat. Afghanistan forced Australia to roll papad for victory.
Over ends in 5 balls
Batting first, Australia had scored 168 runs, which ultimately proved to be enough for the team but a mistake by the umpire denied them a few more runs. In fact, during the Australian innings, the umpire declared the over to be over after just 5 balls. All this happened in the fourth over of the innings.
David Warner and Mitchell Marsh were batting in this over of Afghan pacer Naveen-ul-Haq and had scored 9 runs in the first four balls. Then no run was found on the fifth ball and the umpire declared the over to be over.
Australia will suffer
That is, in the entire 120-ball match, Australia got to play only 119 balls. The lack of this one ball could have been heavy for them as the Australian batsmen could have scored at least one and at most 6 more runs on it. That is, Australia’s score could have been more than 168, which Afghanistan had almost achieved.
However, the other side of this is that David Warner could have been out on that one ball as well because in his very next over Naveen-ul-Haq had taken Warner’s wicket on the second ball.
In the same over, Naveen took off the wheels of the Australian innings, making Steve Smith his victim. Australia scored 168 runs on the strength of Mitchell Marsh and finally Glenn Maxwell. Afghanistan gave a tough competition to the hosts. Rashid Khan snatched the match by scoring an unbeaten 48 runs in just 23 balls, but missed by just 5 runs.
